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Iraqi president tells Turkey 'no can do'
on PKK rebel leaders
22.10.2007
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October
22, 2007
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan region 'Iraq", --
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani rejected on Sunday
the idea that Turkey' Kurdish PKK rebel leaders
holed up on Iraq's Kurdistan mountainous border with
Turkey could be rounded up and handed over as
demanded by Ankara.
Speaking in the capital of Iraq's autonomous
Kurdistan region Talabani also reiterated a call for
the rebels from to lay down their arms or leave the
country.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has
threatened an incursion into Iraq unless Baghdad
clamps down on the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
rebels on its territory and turns over their
leaders.
The threat of an incursion increased on Sunday after
12 Turkish soldiers and 32 rebels were killed in
overnight clashes in southeastern Turkey sparked by
a PKK ambush near the tense border with Iraq.
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Iraqi President : Jalal Talabani, a Kurd |
"The handing over of PKK leaders to Turkey is a
dream that will never be realised," Talabani,
himself a Kurd, told journalists.
"PKK's leaders are in Kurdistan's rugged mountains.
The Turkish military with its mightiness could not
annihilate them or arrest them, so how could we
arrest them and hand them to Turkey?"
However, Talabani and Iraqi Kurdistan president
Massoud Barzani hold most sway over Iraqi Kurdish
peshmerga fighters best suited for any operations
Iraq could launch.
"We have appealed to the PKK and PEJAK (an offshoot
of the PKK) to stop fighting and to transform
themselves from military organisations into civilian
and political ones," Talabani said.
"But if they insist on continuing the fight, they
should leave Kurdistan and not create problems here.
They should go back to their countries and do
whatever they want."
A statement from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's
office condemned what it described as a "terrorist
action" carried out by the PKK against Turkish
soldiers, after a meeting of Iraq's security
committee.
Turkey's parliament on Wednesday approved a motion
authorising military strikes into Iraq for a
one-year period against PKK rebels using northern
Iraq as a springboard for cross-border attacks.
Iraqi lawmakers overwhelmingly condemned the Turkish
move on Sunday but urged their own government to do
more to rid the country of the rebels.
"The parliament calls on PKK fighters to leave Iraqi
territories and asks the Iraqi government to take
the required measures to stop PKK activities being
launched from Iraqi territories," a motion said.
In Ankara, Erdogan said he, President Abdullah Gul
and top ministers and military leaders would meet
later Sunday to decide on what action to take
following the latest clashes.
The Turkish army has already sent additional troops
to the region following the attack in which PKK
rebels allegedly ambushed an infantry platoon.
Erdogan on Friday urged the Iraqi government to
close "once and for all" the PKK camps, but judged
"positive" recent vows by Baghdad to do so.
"What would satisfy us is the closure of all the PKK
camps, including their training camps and the
handover of their terrorist leaders," he was quoted
as saying by the Anatolia news agency.
Ankara claims that some 3,500 PKK fighters have
found refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan and are tolerated or
even actively supported by Iraqi Kurdish leaders --a
charge the Iraqi Kurdistan administration strongly
denies.
"We call on both sides to avoid the war, but if war
broke out between them, we would not be with either
of them," Barzani said at the press conference with
Talabani.
More than 37,000 people have been killed since 1984
when the PKK took up arms fighting for self-rule in
Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast.
Iraqi Kurdish politician says, Turkey is using a
Kurdish separatist PKK rebel group as an excuse to
invade Kurdistan region 'Iraq' to prevent the
establishment of Kurdistan state in the Kurdish
autonomous region in 'northern Iraq'.
Ankara is anxious to prevent the emergence of a
Kurdish state in Kurdistan region 'northern Iraq',
fearing this could fan separatism among its own
large Kurdish population in southeast Turkey.
"Turks have Kurdophobia," said Mahmoud Othman, a
member of the Kurdistan Alliance bloc in parliament.
"They are afraid of anything Kurdish."
A leading PKK figure told AFP that Turkish soldiers
had been captured after the fighting, but Turkish
Defence Minister Vecdi Gonul told journalists in the
Ukrainian capital Kiev that no hostages were taken.
Gonul also said Turkey has plans for a cross-border
incursion but "not urgently."
AFP
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